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An open letter from scholars to the Chinese authority demanding the release of the arrested labour NGOs workers﻿

As China and labour studies scholars, we have been researching civil society and labour relations in China for many years. Labour NGOs like the ones affected in this round of repression have been an important focus of our research. We have documented and debated the role that such organizations have played China’s social development. These groups have operated within the law and striven to educate, serve, learn from and defend workers’ legal rights. Indeed, their efforts have contributed significantly to improving the working and living conditions of migrant workers. More broadly, the programming of labour NGOs has supported key policy objectives such as eradicating poverty.

The Chinese government has expanded its crackdown on civil society. Since 2015, hundreds of human rights lawyers, feminists, and labour activists have been harassed, detained and sentenced to prison sentences. In 2018, workers’ demands to unionize at the Shenzhen Jasic Technology Company drew the backing of left-wing students from elite universities. According to media reports, 30 people, including the Jasic workers themselves, their student supporters, and others have been detained in a widening net. This case has rightly drawn international concern.

Less reported however has been the government’s policy of extending the repression to a significant number of labour non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in South China regardless of whether they were involved in the Jasic dispute. Following the arrest of two members of a Shenzhen group known as the Dagongzhe Workers Center, the official Xinhua News Agency issued an erroneous report on August 24, 2018, accusing Dagongzhe of instigating a strike at Jasic. In January 2019, a further round of detentions involved five staff members from the Shenzhen Xin Gongyi (Shenzhen New Justice), Shenzhen Chunfeng Labor Disputes Services Center as well as a labour rights law firm. Three staff of an online workers’ rights advocacy website ‘I-labour’ were detained between January and March 2019. It is possible more will be pulled in by authorities soon.

As China and labour studies scholars, we have been researching civil society and labour relations in China for many years. Labour NGOs like the ones affected in this round of repression have been an important focus of our research. We have documented and debated the role that such organizations have played China’s social development. These groups have operated within the law and striven to educate, serve, learn from and defend workers’ legal rights. Indeed, their efforts have contributed significantly to improving the working and living conditions of migrant workers. More broadly, the programming of labour NGOs has supported key policy objectives such as eradicating poverty.

Rather than repression, we hold that the work of Chinese labour NGOs should command the utmost respect. Given their meagre resources, grassroots organizations can only provide a low level of pay to their employees. They do not act for their own material gain but to serve the underprivileged and wider society in general. Some of their leaders and staff are former workers themselves who joined NGOs to help others avoid the hardships they faced as frontline workers. Others are educated young people who have made the choice to sacrifice a potentially prosperous future in order to serve others and contribute to the just and equitable development of China. These are precisely the sort of people who offer hope for China’s future.

Since joining the World Trade Organisation in 2001, the Chinese government has reached out to civil society for advice and partnership on pressing problems. But this approach seems to have been largely abandoned especially regarding civil society organisations engaged in anything more than providing minimal service provision. This is a self-defeating change in policy. In the long run, the coercive measures currently being deployed will serve to deepen social conflict and hamper the balanced development that the government seeks to achieve.

In solidarity with the detainees and out of concern for the change of policy direction in China, we hereby advise the Chinese government:

1) Release the arrested Fu Changguo, Wu Guijun, Zhang Zhiru, He Yuan Cheng, Jian Hui, Song Jia Hui, Yang Zhengjun (Baozi), Wei Zhili, Ke Chengbing and other arrested labour NGOs staff2) While they remain in detention, allow family members and lawyers to visit as stipulated by the law 3) Stop the repression of activists in different sectors and create conditions for a more democratic and open society

Signees (In alphabetical order; to be updated, as of 4 April 2019):

Gilbert Achcar, Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London

Nathan Attrill, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Tat Chor Au-Yeung

Amanda Ba, Visual arts, Columbia University

Andreas Bieler, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

David Brophy, Department of History, University of Sydney

Anita Chan, Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University

Chris Chan, Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Jenny Chan, Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University